Turtle Playground

A fantastic place for kids of all ages! On a recent trip to the STL Zoo we parked in the Dogtown neighborhood and visited Turtle Playground. It was a beautiful day, and our 1.5 year-​old daughter LOVED it. Large stone turtles are scattered all about, some large enough to be used as slides, and some megalithic stone snakes curve their way across the landscape. An abundance of fragrant pine trees dot the area, and provide ample shade, even in fall and winter. In short, our baby loved it, and there were many older kids having a great time in the park as well. A very unique place — STL is lucky to have it!
A foot bridge makes it easy to cross over I-​64 and brings you very close to the Zoo entrance, making it easy to visit both the Turtle Playground and the Zoo without having to re-​park your car.
I think our daughter liked the playground better than the Zoo itself.

Large concrete turtles. That’s it — that’s what this place is bringing… and you know what, the kids are liking it.
If you have kids that want to climb, this place is the jam. Kids will tire themselves out climbing and sliding back down on the slick concrete. Your kids won’t want to stop climbing. Bring your hydration and rest in the shaded ares.

Giant concrete turtles that you are encouraged to climb on. What’s not to love? Must-​see St. Louis, especially if you have kids, but even if you don’t.

Idk about this park. Location is weird, it’s across the bridge from the zoo. Housing across the street, the street is a busy street and I don’t find that to be safe for children even though there is a side walk. Not to mention the park is dirty as hell, trash and dog poop everywhere. The reason I gave this place a 2 was because the turtles were huge and my son and daughter liked that. I only stayed there for a few mins because I don’t consider the park to be in a safe spot.

Would have missed this place if I had not gone to the City Museum. One of the locals I was chatting with told me Turtle Park was done by Bob Cassily the artist who did the City Museum so we drove to the park on the way back to our hotel.
Can’t beat FREE! If you have kids this is a must stop. Huge turtles they can climb on and have fun … actually there were lots of adults climbing on them too!
Old time neighborhood bar across the street if you need a beer!

The giant turtles are amazing! You don’t have to be a kid to enjoy an hour climbing around on the big and small turtles — and two snakes. My sisters and I stopped by on our way into Forest Park/​the zoo.
Also it’s great, because you can park here for free then walk to the zoo. Boom. Wonderful.

Relaxing place. Peaceful. :-)

Gigantic turtles! Gigantic turtles right by the interstate! That’s right, folks. And they’re not even ninjas.
What a cool little place! My wife and I were out with the kid one afternoon, and I decided that it would be fun to leave our afternoon up to my Unilocal app. I plugged in «Parks», and up came the Turtle Playground. The map feature was a little off, so we spent a few minutes driving around the zoo, but we eventually found our way. If you have the same problem, it’s an easy fix. The park is the same exit as the Zoo, but on the south side of the interstate. It’s on the same street as some apartment buildings.
It was a nice little visit. The park was a bit littered upon, and the interstate noise was a little loud, but it was overall a good experience. I wouldn’t necessarily rely on this park as a place to take kids to play, but certainly nice to visit, and definitely great for photos.
Don’t come here after it rains. Some of the coolest photos are in and around the mouths of the turtles, but when it rains, the water builds up. This is a great park on a sunny day.

Can’t complain about anything associated with the Forest Park area really. This is a cute, little park on the south side of I-​64 (conveniently located across the street from Pat’s Bar and Grill).
This is a great meet-​up place as we use it always for FBC ride meetups. Fun place for kids to play and frolic. It comes equipped with cute concrete turtles and a mother snake with eggs. Within walking distance to the zoo and has a parking lot in addition to street parking on Oakland.
Just a neat place to hang out.

First off, the GPS/​Yelp listing, of this particular park is off. The GPS puts you on the other side of the park, and if you park there and walk around, people will look at you crazy. So follow the Forest Park directional signs, and you will realize the park is actually near the zoo.
This place is quite cool once you find it. It is full of GIANT turtle statues, that you can climb, and take pictures of/​with for the low cost of FREE.

Turtle Park is a pretty cool place to visit. Kids will have a good time climbing all over the huge stone reptiles. They are however, the only thing to do there. You can walk over to the zoo from there but if you’re going for the turtles, you’re looking at about 20 minutes of fun before they get a bit old. Parking is free but limited on days when the zoo is busy. It is however just a mile or so away from the Science Center so that’s another option in case you’re looking for a day out with the kids.

Turtle Park is kind of fun and an interesting little park.
When we came today it was extremely hot. They had sprinklers going which I didn’t hesitate to play in. Simple water sprinklers that were watering the grass really did make a difference in how I felt walking around. The drinking fountain itself was a bit jankady. It didn’t have enough pressure to cause the water to shoot a larger stream for you drink from it. You would literally have to put your mouth on the spout to get a sip. I resulted to taking a sip from the spraying sprinklers.
Word of advice:
Bring the little kids here to get them some exercise. The kiddies would have a blast running and climbing on all the turtles and the very long snake. Give it a little while and I am sure this could tire them out pretty quickly if you’re there long enough. Make sure you keep a good eye on them when they’re climbing though, the turtles and snake are made of a hard substance that would definitely hurt them if they fell and skinned a knee or elbow. There is a shaded walking path that guides you around the turtles and snake, but not much else.
It’s worth checking out if you’re in the area of Dogtown or by the zoo on the Tamm Avenue side.

This is a really cool place to spend an hour. There are a bunch of huge turtle statues that kids (even grown up kids like me) can play on. There are occasionally performers here, and you might even see a bridal party gettting pictures taken in the summer.
The best part about this place is that you can park here for free and walk across the overpass to the zoo.

i like turtles.
One of my first crushes was Raphael from TMNT (amongst David Bowie in Labrynth, Burt Ward from the original Batman and Robin, Bill Murray in Ghostbusters and David Letterman), so natchers I was going to make time in our busy STL sched for some snappers.
First and Foremost, don’t follow the Unilocal addy when trying to find this listing. You’ll end up ass backward on the complete wrong side off the park. Here’s a better idea of where to get your daily dose of reptilia: In front of Pat’s bar (sign looks like ‘Rats’) and behind the zoo (meaning just across the highway).
You’re welcome. Now go plank some turtles!
Oh! And don’t forget your camera and party pants because you’re gonna want to remember this place and defo wish you had on pants with a fair amount of stretch to scale these suckers.
Turtles on the half shell: Turtle Plank! Errr, I mean ‘Power’!

It doesn’t have swings or a slide, but it’s a playground for sure! It’s a great place to spend an hour or two on a warm afternoon climbing on turtles.

BURN Time & Energy + GET PICS! All for the low price of NOTHING!
Small, fun & accessible park with explorable & climbable giant concrete turtles will make warm blooded even the most hardened shelled visitor.
ENJOY ;-)

For me, Turtle Park is where FBC (that’s F***ing Bike Club) rides start late at night. It’s generally the meeting point for this late night, beer fueled rides.
But also, I’ve taken pictures there and climbed around. I imagine it’s a pretty fun place to take wee folk, although I have never been there with children. It’s not a big park. Just some giant concrete turtles, a very lengthy and also concrete snake, and a swing set. Pretty darn simple. Of course, simple can be great.

So fun, and so different. A park even adults can enjoy, and kids are fascinated with without having anything flashy to look at. It’s like exposing them to art, in a way.

turtle park provides quite the unique playground for both children and adults — three gigantic concrete turtles, several smaller turtles, and a snake taking a bite out of the tamm overpass. with it being only a short walk from the zoo, there’s no reason to miss out on this little bit of saint louis originality.
and as aaron j. said, it’s quite the opportunity for photo-​fun.

Turtle Park, now that is a fun little park to hang around and give you an opportunity to revert back to a child. The giant turtles across from the St. Louis Zoo make Turtle Park even more appropriate of a place to play.
Whenever I go there with friends, we seem to be going for the main reason to take as many stupid pictures of each other as much as we possibly can. Most of the time this deals with us either being eaten or squashed. Either way it makes for good times.
Since Turtle Park is a park, it is a great place to go with family or friends to have some fun self-​entertainment.